Director Juan Jose Campanella (The Secret in Their Eyes) made an animated foosball movie a couple years ago, called variously Metegol and Foosball, and The Weinstein Company will release the movie in the US this spring under the title Underdogs. Along with giving the film that new title, the Weinsteins have dubbed the movie with an English-language voice cast that includes Matthew Morrison (Glee), Ariana Grande, Nicolas Hoult (X-Men: Days of Future Past), Bell Thorne (Blended), Katie Holmes (Batman Begins) and John Leguizamo. You can see a new Underdogs US trailer, featuring work from that voice cast, after the break. Read More »

Juan José Campanella followed his Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes with an animated fusbol film that took the Argentine box office by storm last year. The movie, called Metegol at home, was the most expensive Argentine production in history at $21m, but also a very successful release in South America when it hit theaters last summer.

Now The Weinstein Company has picked up US release rights for the movie; trouble is, the Weinstein Co. will release Metegol as Underdogs in the US. Read More »

Will we ever get to see Metegol, the new film from The Secret in Their Eyes director Juan José Campanella, in US theaters? Hard to say, as the animated film is about a foosball game coming to life, and foosball and soccer just aren’t as popular in the States as they are nearly everywhere else in the world. (They’re growing here, but there’s a way to go yet.)

It would be too bad if we don’t get a chance to see the film theatrically, because it looks like a lot of fun. There have been a couple small teaser clips in the past year (since pulled), and now we’ve got a proper teaser trailer. There’s good animation here, and some character designs that look just right for the story the film wants to tell. Read More »

We were a bit surprised — only a bit — when it was announced that Juan Jose Campanella, director of the Oscar-winning Secret in Their Eyes, would make an animated film called Metegol, or Foosball. Only a bit surprised because there was that one great sequence in Secret that takes place at a soccer match, suggesting that Campanella evidently has more than a passing interest in the sport. But foosball is something else altogether, and not a thing that is often chronicled on screen. (Who knew this teaser would hit so close to a foosball-themed Community episode?)

The film is reportedly about ” an underdog who, with the help of foosball figures that come to life, must take on a star soccer pro to save their village.” We’ll have to wait to see more of that, but for now there is a one-minute teaser that starts to give us an idea of what the animation will look like. Check it out below. Read More »

Briefly:Juan Jose Campanella‘s most recent film, The Secret in Their Eyes, won this year’s foreign-language Oscar, and now he’s chosen his follow-up picture. It might seem like the least likely choice: he’s planning to direct the animated Metegol, a film about soccer.

Variety describes the plot, which features “an underdog who, with the help of foosball figures that come to life, must take on a star soccer pro to save their village.” Mr. Campanella is also producing, and the film has a fairly small budget: only about $10m. But he says “”We are finding a visual style that we haven’t seen before in an animated movie. We are putting a lot of effort in that.” Can’t wait to hear more about this one, especially if the visual design turns out to be really unique.